Our way home

I started this quilt for a challenge with AQC but never actually got around to finishing it due to time restraints.

I would take it out and look at it and put it away again and then take it out again look at it again and put it back again, in a box on the shelf.

This process went on for about 10 months.

And then someone from Golden Plains Shire namely Samantha had a art competition running and I was asked to put in some artwork but again due to time restraints I said NO.

I spoke to Samantha about something other than this one day and then we got back onto this competition in the conversation and she encouraged me to put in something for this art show.

I came away from the conversation thinking about it and wondering what on earth I could put in to this art show with only a month to spare.

And then I remembered this quilt that I'd started 10 months prior and never finished and not that it's a new years Revelation that I'm going to finish everything that I start but I thought this could be something really were finishing for this project

So i open up the box that was on the shelf where it lived for the last 10 months and took it out placed it on the bench and had a good look at it.

I really wasn't happy with that overall but I knew it had the skeletons of a good quilt so I started looking at it with a different thought in mind.

The theme for this art show was 'Australia,my home' and being that this started as an indigenous flag with half of a map of Australia and some girls hugging each other I wasn't sure which way I was going.

I really thought that the rabbit proof fence would be the theme, but as I worked on it the rabbit proof fence really became only one part of a bigger story.

So I spoke to some friends of mine who live locally one of them being an indigenous man about these times that the rabbit proof fence movie and what it meant to the indigenous people at that time and now.

If you've seen the movie then you know the girls use the rabbit proof fence to get their way home after being taken from their family.

This to me is unspeakable to have any child taken from any family but when it happened to these young indigenous children all those years ago I really believe that the love and strength that they had and desire and passion to get home was so strong that they would do anything to to be with their family.

The love they have for each other the passion they have for their culture and for their family is just beautiful and deserves to be spoken about with respect.

I could never proclaim to know anything about what they went through and how these families coped but I do know how much I love my family and how much it would break my heart to not be with them or to be taken away from them.

So this quilt turned out to really have an emotive feeling to it it's not just fabric it's not just textiles it has heart and it has love and it has worry concern heartbreak passion caring and many many more feelings all tied up and every stitch.

We all live here, but this is their home and that's their way home and that's why this quilt means so much to me.

We can't take what doesn't belong to us so taking someone's children away from them is one of the worst things you could do to any family and any home and in Australia we are all family, we must all love each other and respect each other regardless of where we come from.

I have many friends from many different walks of life and I also have indigenous friends who I think are inspirational and just beautiful people and my love and respect for them is very high.

As I write this I'm all teary because it means so much to me to be able to portray how I feel through a quilt.

Here are some pictures of the quilt

There are so many things that I can say about this quilt and how I feel about it and how I feel about the indigenous people of this beautiful country and I just don't have enough words in my vocabulary to be able to express myself truly, so my art will have to do it for me

I hope you enjoyed the quilt and you get to see it in real life as it's very emotional for me.

Love you all

Michelle xx